Having established herself as a rising star on film and modeling sets, directing short films and working with Gucci and Stella McCartney, Florence Rose is now creating her sumptuous sonic wonderland. My Lust Is My Religion is the London-based singer-songwriter’s debut album, with eight captivating tracks that unearth the obsessive, desperate feelings we often try to push down. Traversing new ground, Rose draws on a wide range of influences from alt-pop to trip-hop, and ties them all together with her haunting touch.
Across the album, Rose has crafted a striking world of dark ethereality, giving soft sounds a sharper edge as she unravels a tangled web of love and lust. This is clear from the offset—lush vocals ebb and flow across the opener “I Am Your Daughter,” underscored by stripped-back trip-hop. Fluctuating between “I am your father and you are my daughter” and “You are my father / I’ll be your daughter / Just show me how,” Rose seems to be willing to shapeshift to please her lover, and her lyrics are frequently imbued with earnest desperation. “Something inside you / I wanna be inside / I wanna be inside,” she repeats longingly in “In Your Room,” where layers of delicate melodies melt into each other against a simple acoustic guitar. Even her hums and sighs contain aching depths, carried by the rolling ocean waves that open the song to sweep listeners up in their calming embrace: “Something sweet / Take me in / Water pulling me in,” she sings, with muffled vocals emulating the sensation of being underwater. “Shiny New Girl” is perhaps the most imploring, with Rose yearning so deeply for love that she likens herself to roadkill, completely exposed and helpless. Against meandering guitar strums and echoey background vocals, her breathy voice becomes almost incomprehensible. This enhances the surreal tone of the project as a whole, while also lightening the song’s more disturbing lyrics—“Pick me up like roadkill / Open hands hold me still / Prune over me pull my hair / Lick my scabs to show you care,” Rose sings with a tender sweetness, masking the darker subject matter in a quietly macabre way.
My Lust Is My Religion is far from one-dimensional, however. The title track begins and ends with intimate spoken word bridged by a light, hazy soundscape; listeners are led into a more liminal space teetering on the edge between eerie and ethereal. Meanwhile, in “Until We Die,” Rose blends otherworldly warped synths with layered melodies driven forward by a faster tempo. Its lyrics add a touch of sensual playfulness to the album: “Take me to the edge throw me over your knee / Mountains of gold you’ll be seeing me / Slowly, coming up the mountain into your eyes / Slowly, coming up the mountain to ask,” she taunts with charming confidence. “Pleasure Wont Please” elevates this even further as Rose experiments with angelic call-and-response vocals—“Desire for you it lies within me / (I find you sleeping in and then I) / Crawl to you on hands and knees / (I know it won’t work so let’s play)”—set against a funkier beat, creating a deliciously divine groove that makes for a standout track. By singing both parts herself, Rose hints at the all-consuming nature of desire and perhaps the sense of wholeness that comes with being attuned to your emotions.
Indeed, by the final dreamy song “Isn’t Life Beautiful,” Rose confronts her intense emotions more head-on, with evocative lyricism and vivid instrumentals to match. “Isn’t life beautiful / Blood and tears, dutiful / God knows, life’s divine / But you don’t see it, valentine”; the chorus feels like a celebration of the ability to feel deeply, even when these emotions are difficult or not felt so acutely by others. But while her valentine doesn’t get it, God does. As the album’s title elucidates, religion is a thought-provoking medium for Rose to dive deeper into feelings of devotion that border on devoutness. These feelings are explored most explicitly in the achingly somber “God Knows,” which opens with melancholic guitar strums and languid beats resembling Ethel Cain’s early ambient alt-pop. “I’d sacrifice myself for you / God knows that I tried / God knows that I’ve died / I’ve tried,” Rose sings plaintively—longing to be loved, she floats effortlessly between high and low notes in a way that feels entirely raw and vulnerable. However, while painful, the undercurrent of quiet birdsong and ocean waves at the beginning of the track reminds us that these emotions are natural, and ought to be embraced rather than evaded.
With lo-fi dream pop and trip-hop sounds synthesized by Rose’s clear aesthetic vision, My Lust Is My Religion is a dazzling, dramatic debut release. Though lust is traditionally associated with sinfulness, the album title pairs it directly with religion. Much of faith and spirituality is about seeking guidance or solace from something greater than ourselves. Therefore, while seemingly oxymoronic, My Lust Is My Religion affirms the liberation found in returning to our obsessive, primal, and devotional feelings.
